Madeleine Bunting - Labours of Love: The Crisis of Care

The Crisis of Care

MADELEINE
BUNTING

The proofs for this book arrived at the same time as the global Covid-19 crisis erupted. London had fallen deathly silent except for the wail of sirens. Our household, like many others, was in quarantine after my daughter had fallen sick. In ways beyond my wildest imaginings, the themes of this book had been thrust to the forefront of everyones minds.

Suddenly and dramatically, in the shadow of this global pandemic, we have all become acutely aware of our physical vulnerability, our dependence on others for care, our appreciation of those whose job it is to care, and our own role in caring. Over the last five years of research, I had been investigating a quiet crisis buried in individual lives (p. 5), but in March 2020 we faced the opposite: a crisis of care which has brought our daily lives and the world economy to a juddering, disorientating halt. Covid-19 has starkly exposed the chronic underinvestment and undervaluing of care; in the relatively early days of this crisis, the outlook is that the UKs precarious and overstretched health and social care systems will buckle, and as a result, thousands of lives will be lost. As the pandemic progresses and hopefully passes, Covid-19 will unleash a huge questioning of the politics and governing systems which failed to foresee this disaster. That could lead to anger, but equally, could trigger a massive cultural shift in which we come to recognize the foundations of care on which all human wellbeing rests. How we organize and fund health and social care could be transformed. We have been brutally reminded that the marginalization of people the homeless, asylum seekers, prisoners in crowded jails will contribute to the severity of the pandemic. For the first time ever in human history, no one is immune, every human being is in this together. The tragedy is that it has taken a disaster to understand our commonality.

Government announcements during the pandemic have repeatedly used the word essential when referring to our caring services. As we experience multiple restrictions on our daily life, we are learning fast the meaning of that word. Lockdown is an entirely novel experience for many in rich countries whose lives are full of complexity, freedom, opportunity and luxury. Suddenly we realize that what is essential is care, and our greatest nightmares are its absence. Will there be nurses and doctors? Will there be beds and equipment? If I am scared who will hold my hand? For those at home the questions are no less urgent. Who is on hand to bring us food? Who can fetch medications? Networks of care are springing up around us as I write; my phone reverberates with messages from my street WhatsApp group: offers to help with shopping and to share food and medicine. Meanwhile, Covid-19 has revealed a humbling truth: that our measures of status and value are flimsy, and that it is the low-paid labour of cleaners, supermarket assistants, and social care workers that is essential. They will be the ones keeping us fed and safe, thus saving lives.

Through much of this book runs an argument about the invisibility of care, and its historic under-valuing. Covid-19 has upended this: care has suddenly taken centre stage. I hope that my investigation can contribute to the soul searching that will follow this crisis; the cry of why did no one see this coming?, as the Queen asked after the 2008 financial crisis. Over the last decade, we have stripped care systems to the bone not just health and social care but in neighbourhoods so that people have lost the habit of asking or offering help. What has made those threadbare care systems so dangerous is that at the same time, medical advances have extended lives so that a greater proportion of the population have fragile health. Covid-19 ripped into the gap I describe in chapter one between the growing need for care and the inadequate systems available to provide it.

A wide-ranging global debate will follow this pandemic for years to come, and this book will play its part by defining what we overlooked. It throws light on many of the attributes, activities and people we will need to value afresh. I can see a new politics of care emerging which recognizes our interdependence as families, friends, communities, towns, cities, nations and as a human species. Terrifying though these days are, we are witnessing a dramatic global effort to save lives. That is inspiring. Everywhere people are focused on this one task, whether they are overworked hospital doctors, engineers building ventilators, scientists researching vaccines or the billions who are staying at home. We are being reminded of what matters: both life and what sustains it, care.

Madeleine Bunting
March 2020